Remember the ant and the rubber tree plant? That ant had high hopes and so did a whole bunch of Presidential candidates.
So what happened to those political high hopes held by so many candidates of promise?
Let’s start with the debate debacles: The format was horrible. Point/counterpoint is no way to inform the voting public of the character of the candidates, or the merit of their proposals. Raising your hand for recognition demeans the office. It is what elementary school students do. It would have been so much better to give each candidate five minutes to express their five top problems and solutions. Brief and to-the-point.
Would you expect a candidate to say that their opponent’s position is better than their own?
The pundit debate monitors did a terrible job of focusing the issues and controlling the screechers. In this environment, the candidate with the best one-liners seemed to be heroic to the debate monitors, and the candidate with manners and who followed the rules was labelled weak.
Did anyone make their decision on who to vote for based on debate performance? Doubtful.
There’s also the billionaire factor. One candidate spent $250 million – starting nearly a year ago – with a single message: he was the best person to beat President Trump. Could you figure out what he would do once elected?
Another candidate spent $500 million in a few weeks telling us his role as Mayor of New York gave him the credentials to be a good President. Probably true, but his total of 20 minutes of debate performance negated a lifetime of business, philanthropic and political success.
Please keep one thing in mind. The total primary expenses through Super Tuesday were nearly $900 million. The money went mostly to media, so this kumatai slugfest was a source of untold profits for the media moguls and their stockholders. To put the dollars into perspective, more money has been spent so far than the taxable value of 80 percent of the property in Graham County.
Furthermore, many of the candidates had great resumes, but bland personas. Bernie consistently railed against the oligarchs on Wall Street and the outrageous profits made by the medical companies. He wanted you to believe that the money-changers needed to be thrown out of the Washington temple and he was the candidate to do that.
Joe Biden said, “Wait a minute. We can’t afford all this.” He was calm and did not point his finger at you. All the rest of the candidates fought for a place in the continuum of recognition by the media and failed to find a sweet spot.
Finally, voters saw through the opposition dirt-researching and did not hold a candidate responsible for some stupid behavior or slip of the tongue 30 or more years ago. Who among us hasn’t said or done something that they regret? Biden helped his son with getting a lucrative job, for which he was unqualified. Bernie praised some political strongmen with whom he was enamored many years ago. Has not the current incumbent in the White House done the same for his children and their spouses? Does he not cotton up to the current strongmen of the world?
All these factors taken together whittled down a broad and diverse group of candidates to two old white guys. Perhaps Darwin’s theory of survival of the fittest best describes the primary process to date.
Roger Carlton is a columnist for The Graham Star.